Happy New Year to everyone. May your next year will be happier and more successful than the previous one in both your personal and work life. And may the Force Scrum be with you. (Ok, that was cheesy.)

It would be Prague Scrum Beer’s third anniversary this month. (Depending when you start counting. We started counting from creating a meetup.com group.) Back in January 2014 nine Scrum enthusiasts started this group and regular meetings. Since those times of Scrumish chitchats over a glass of beer the group has been slowly growing, evolving, adding content and topics, and becoming a go to place for many Prague Scrum practitioners. This year Prague Scrum Beer will take another steps to provide more quality content and become THE agile event in Prague.

Organizer team

Ondřej Kavula and Milan Gerža, long time regulars, joined me, Karel Smutný, to form an organizer team, with an intention to make Scrum Beer more professional.

Venue

This year we are going to move from pubs to co-working spaces for the main part of the evening, so we can focus more on the content and discussions and won’t be disturbed by the pub’s noisy environment.

However we will not completely detach from the Scrum Beer roots, as there will be a table booked in a pub nearby for those who want to have a beer after the event, to chat and network with others.

Schedule

Consistency reduces complexity. From now on, the schedule of all events will be the same:

18:00 – 18:30 Arrival and networking

18:30 – 20:30 Main program (talks, workshop, game, open space)

20:30 – 20:45 Facilitated retrospective

21:00 – ? Networking at a pub nearby the venue

We will keep monthly schedule, having an event the last week each month. We also keep a tradition of a Christmas Scrum Punch, and start a new tradition of a Summer Scrum BBQ, probably in July.

Content

As last year, each event will have a bearing topic. We will continue to experiment with various formats. But more often than so far, there will be a talk, case study, workshop, exercises, or some games prepared. While many found discussions using Lean Coffee or Open Space Technology formats valuable, we want to focus more also on hands on experiences.

This year of Scrum Beers will be less about chit chatting and more about learning and sharing.

Contribution

Prague Scrum Beer is meant to be a community. We welcome anyone who wants to prepare a session,have a speech, case study, panel discussion or facilitated workshop. Please feel free to contact us in case you are willing to contribute.

Feedback

Starting with next event, in order to keep improving we will collect feedback in a more systematic way. After each session, there will be a facilitated 15-20min retrospective held. We hope it will bring more focused suggestions than comments at meetup.com or an anonymous sticky on a board.

Reports

After each event we will write a short report for those who were unable to attend, with photos and possibly with videos of talks. You will find them on this page within a week from the event.

Costs

Going this way will bring some costs, mainly co-working space rent, some refreshments and material for the sessions. That means we will have to start collecting entrance fees to cover the costs. Please note Prague Scrum Beer will not become a commercial event. The fees will be collected at a transparent bank account and will cover costs only. No remunerations for speakers or organizers but any possible excess will be kept to cover future costs or finance Scrum BBQ or Scrum Punch.

The first three events will have voluntary entrance fee, the remaining costs to be covered by organizers.

Conclusion

We believe you will find Prague Scrum Beer more appealing in 2017 and we will see you more often. Please let us know in the comments your view on the upcoming changes.